This paper is a synthetic overview of different methods used to create atlases of Slavic languages. It discusses the tradition of linguistic geography in Poland and presents the most important Slavic language atlases. It also describes common problems faced by atlas creators. In particular, the paper focuses on describing methods of collecting language data through questionnaires, ways of exploring language areas (directly or through correspondence), point network formation, and ways of presenting and mapping language material (through different types of maps, including post maps, isogloss maps, contour maps, and maps of mixed types). All these issues are presented on the basis of the most important Slavic language atlases.
The aim of the article is discussion of influence of the Polish language on Latvian dialects in the area of Latgale. The close contiguity as well as genetic nearness of the Polish, Belorussian and Russian languages makes it difficult to state categorically which of them was a direct source for Latvian. Knowledge of settlement in the area of Latvia does not facilitate this task as these three Slavonic nations considerably reinforced former Livonia and Courland. The material basis of the discussion constitute two studies - dialectal atlas of Latvian 'Latviesu valodas dialektu atlants' and dialectal texts from Latgale 'Augszemnieku dialekta tekst. Latgaliskas izloksnes'. The article presents analysis of names which may have appeared in Latvian dialects from Polish. Polish (as well as Belorussian or Russian) could have equivalently affected the range of lexical Latgalian dialects and neighbouring dialectal groups. These are 'bocjans' (stork), 'butelka' (bottle), koldra (quilt), mjantuzs, mentuzs (burbot - kind of fish), skvarkas (crackling). A separate group is formed by names for which the Polish language (or other Slavonic languages) was a medium for borrowing words of German origin: 'cegla' (brick), kartufelis (potato), 'skuoda' (place in a field damaged by animals), 'selma' (knave), 'svagars' (brother in law). Among Slavonic words there are such words with which it is impossible to decide on the direction of borrowing because of similarity of forms and common proto-Slavonic source: 'malina' (raspberry), 'sawa' (owl), 'zapaks' (smell). The source of polonisms in Latvian dialects were words belonging to general Polish. Therefore the argument about considerable influence of Poles who represent higher social strata seems to be confirmed. Moreover one can indicate that Polish North-Eastern dialect of the Polish borderland must have affected Latgalian dialects however it is difficult to indicate to what extent.
The subject matter of the linguistic analysis is 'Pamietnik' (Diary) written by Julian Borzym, a nobleman born in 1840 in one of the villages in north-east Poland. The exact date of the creation of the piece is not known. The diary is an interesting source of not only ancient lexis but also a description of mainly mentality and past morals of the inhabitants of Podlasie region in the XIX century. The article includes the elaboration of archaisms: orthographic (phonetic) and lexical, and in these we distinguish: appropriate, so those names which became out of use and those which were deleted from the vocabulary with the disappearance of designatum, namely index archaisms as well as semantic archaisms. Relative archaisms, being used by the dialect users were also taken into account. The archaisms apparent in the 'Pamietniki' by Borzym mosty consist of names referring to the gentry, past professions and functions, which supported better management of farm works. The other group of names allows to recall fragments of past reality concerning central government administration, military and education system. Most of these words are present in the 'Slownik jezyka polskiego' (The Dictionary of Polish Language) edited by W. Doroszewski, others appear in the latest dictionaries of Polish language, obviously as words not present in the contemporary Polish language. The choice of the analyzed archaisms implies that there is a general tendency in this type of words, with nouns most often falling into disuse.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.